Hans Meyer, one of the founders of Sylvac, was a creative person. He counted for the company to which he dedicated his boundless imagination and his bubbling spirit. There have been failures, such as the electro-mechanical clock from Sylvac's early days, but more often, what he touched became gold.

Hans Meyer was a mechanical engineer, but it was in the field of mechanical measuring instruments that he became a true pioneer in the field.

His main invention was the IMICRO in 1944, which is still in production today. He then tackled other problems by systematically taking a different angle of attack, "disruptive" as we would call it today.

In 1969 he founded the precision engineering company that became Sylvac with his nephew Urs Schnyder, to whom he was very close.

During several recent visits, my interlocutors expressed to me their concern that "unverified measuring instruments, whose periodic calibration date had expired, continued to circulate in their workshops when they should have been recalibrated".

One of them insisted on "the difficulty of removing them from users on time", despite everything he had been able to put in place: stickers on the instrument itself which sometimes disappear, lists not kept up to date, absence of the person in charge when the time came, and so on.

In this extraordinary period, but with hope to reach the end of the tunnel, Sylvac had the honour to welcome Madam Simonetta Sommaruga, President of the Swiss Confederation, in its manufacturing plant in Malleray.

Her supporting and listening approach has been warmly appreciated by all the Sylvac team. This meeting gave us the chance to thank Madam President and her government for their commitment, solidarity, pragmatism and the implementation of support measures in this crisis.

We had also the opportunity to ex-change on important topics for Sylvac and on general industry aspects, particularly the prevention of spreading the virus and the required elements for a gradual restart that should anyway happen over time.

Our government has made drastic decisions to limit the development of the disease in Switzerland, but also to contribute to the international effort. Sylvac will naturally apply and follow all the instructions of the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH), and will implement a series of additional measures to preserve the health of its employees (home office, reduced work schedule, strict limitation of external visitors, temporary freeze of business travels).

In this particular situation, we have activated a plan to guarantee the continuity of our activities (Business Continuity Management) !

The manufacture of our instruments and machines are assured for the next weeks to come.